December 05, 2007

Sweet Memory Lane

IT WON'T be hard to find Bill Clinton in New York today - just follow the traffic jams that his visits always produce.

But don't look for his conscience. For the past 14 years, you wouldn't have been able to find it with AWAC radar and search parties.

I am not talking about the scandals of lying to judges and juries, or low-jinks in high places, or Whitewater or Travelgate or Filegate.

It has to do with a man called Wayne Dumond, over whose case I have agonized for long more than a decade.

Dumond, now 52, was given conditional parole yesterday in Arkansas after having being sentenced to 50 years in jail for the rape of Clinton's cousin.

That rape never happened.

. . .

The father of the so-called rape victim was one of Clinton's biggest donors in his race for the Arkansas Governor's Mansion.

. . .

I have in the past spoken to Wayne Dumond for hours in his cell, and, apart from never seeing his wife when he gets his freedom, he says: "No, I'm not bitter. I've learned a lot. I think I've become one of those computer nuts while in jail."

We will be able to find Clinton today in New York. But who can find his conscience?

Sadly, I have known women who have been raped who would never come forward because of the obvious trauma.

Juan Williams, a prestigious liberal commentator, said about the allegations: "Where is Mrs. Clinton on this? ... It is something you would think feminists would be outraged about."

Britt Hume of Fox television said, "This is far uglier than anything we have ever heard."

. . .

For Bill Clinton's sake, I hope he is proved innocent. In 1989, under Bill Clinton's stewardship, an Arkansas man named Wayne Dumond was convicted in a highly controversial case of raping a relative of Bill Clinton.

Despite overwhelming evidence that Dumond was innocent, Clinton, as governor, refused to review the case and let stand a 50-year sentence which Dumond is still serving.

There would be more. Before going to jail, Dumond almost bled to death after two masked intruders castrated him.

Dunleavy is odious. I always skip his columns in The Post, and I'm only reading to see what the oppo says (that, and the sports and gossip - covered from with an equally salacious attention to rumor and innuendo - are top notch)

"Arkansas is like 'Arsenic and Old Lace'. The same body keeps popping up in every room and in every scene."

Jeepers, although I must have seen that at least 15 times, it's also been at least 15 years. Must add it to my Netflix queue of 496! Thanks, John! Tally-ho, and charge!

Some of my fondest memories of life with my now-deceased former sweetie involve long days at places like the Theater 80 St. Marks, and the St. Marks Place Theater, and the Carnegie Hall Theater, and a bunch of other rep houses that existed, and were the only place to see non-release movies back in the Seventies, before there was even videotape, let alone DVD.

Fond memories, to be sure. And Seattle had great movie theaters, as well, including the 45th St. theater, and the Cinerama, and a bunch of others.

"The woman said in an interview that she wrote Huckabee out of concern for him. If she felt so much guilt about what happened to Ashley Stevens, she wondered, what private Hell would Huckabee go through if he commuted Dumond's sentence, and Dumond harmed or even killed someone else?"

The contrast with Huckabee's obvious lack of remorse is amazing. What is up with all these Christianist sociopaths littering the political field?

As far as I can tell Dumond himself didn't have any particular connection to Christinaist rightists. They just deiced that hhe had to be innocent because the victim was a distant relavie of Clinntonand the victim's father was onne of Clinton's doonors.